We’ve been speaking to local businesses in February about what they love – and what they don’t love – about the Cloud. The responses so far:

I love the Cloud:

“Both Directors work from home, so everything that needs to be shared – notably e-mail, calendar and CRM has been in the Cloud for many years”.

“We have used hosting on remote servers for the last two years. We have no servers in house. We use Microsoft Exchange for email which links to our CRM system which is hosted remotely and therefore available via mobile devices. It means we don’t have to deal with tech issues, just lean on the supplier when there is a problem, which isn’t often. Upgrades and other changes like adding more licences are seamless. We also use remote servers for file sharing in our sister company”

“Cloud has enabled me to upload images and content to be used in real time by the office in India” (@YourMajesty)

I love it not:

“It adds cost, but not major value or benefit to us”

“The main issue I believe is to do with Data Protection legislation and the passing of data outside Europe.”

“Whilst it’s naturally an agenda item the advice we’ve had to date is to maintain a local server based approach – a decision borne out of recognition that we don’t require extensive web based access all the time (occasional connection to our terminal server hasn’t yet presented any issues)”

Cloud Computing clearly works for some businesses but won’t be embraced or needed by everyone. I still don’t think we’re seeing the peak of the Cloud, although when we do, I’m sure we’ll still find people who do not love it. It’s virtually impossible to please everyone, just look at the popularity of Apple and yet I still don’t have a single product.

What do you Love or Not Love about the Cloud? Or are you still a Cloud Virgin?